


Classic

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Anger, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Concern, Confusion, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dancing and Singing, Drive-In Theaters, Fluff and Crack, Intimidation, Late at Night, Literal Sleeping Together, Misunderstandings, Movie Night, OT3, Panic, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Race, Rants, Security Breaches, Sneaking Out, Some Humor, Talking During Movies, Work Contains Fan(s) or Fandom(s), distraction, keying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:05:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one would have expected to discover something new about the lives of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. However, the discovery is a secret, kept close to three particular sparks. The secret is...the Twins have rivals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Classic

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge: pick three characters before reading the rest of the prompt. Now think of a film. The characters you’ve chosen end up at a drive-in cinema/movie theatre together. The film you thought of is playing. What happens?
> 
> Cybertronian Time Measurements:  
> Nanoklik - 1 "Second", a very short time (e.g., "Got a nanoklik?")  
> Diun - 1 Month

“Hauler. Hey, Hauler.”

The ex-Constructicon startled online from recharge abruptly, sitting up straight and throwing off the smaller body that had settled itself unwisely on top of him.

“Oof!” Brawn righted himself and rubbed his helm, causing Huffer to snicker at him.

“What are you two doing in here?” Hauler hissed, rubbing his optics in the bright light they had turned on. Checking his internal clock, he added, “And at this time of night! Shouldn’t you be recharging?”

“I told you he’d forget,” Huffer declared. Brawn rolled his optics.

“Roady. Remember, we’re going to the—”

Hauler straightened, smacking his chamfron. “Oh, yeah, the theatre! Alright, then, turn off that light. It’s no fun if we get caught _before_ we can sneak out.”

The last thing Hauler saw before the darkness returned was Brawn and Huffer’s equally wide grins. He edged to his feet, carefully stepping over his small friends when he sensed them, and fumbled the door open.

How these two little mischief-makers had convinced him that testing out whatever the Lambo Twins did for fun was a good plan, he didn’t know.

So far they had tried paint-filled balloon fights, collecting stray animals from the streets, and various secret pranks on each other. None of them had really ended well. Ironhide’s face remained neon-yellow despite how he and the rest of the higher command structure scrubbed it raw. Beachcomber had told them off with as much indignant anger as he could muster in his grief at seeing the animals ‘imprisoned’. Finally, Huffer and Brawn could appreciate how quiet Hauler usually was, for every time they had tried to speak to him their vocalizers used just _slightly_ altered sentences.

Now they were slipping out for a midnight movie.

“It’s classic,” Brawn had assured Hauler (once his vocalizer had been fixed). “We can’t really continue this experiment if we don’t do it.”

The only light in the hallway were that of their optics and the keypads that locked and unlocked each door. Hauler glanced cautiously in a specific direction, sighing in relief when he saw no light there.

“Good work deactivating the cameras, Huffer,” he whispered.

“Let’s just get out of here!” Huffer hissed back. “We only have enough time for the movie; I allocated the freeze frame very carefully! If we waste time, Red Alert will notice and then where will we be?”

“Under a body pile,” Brawn announced softly. “They’ll likely mistake us for Decepticons and attack.”

The trio could finally vent more easily in the open, late-night air. “It’s a nice night,” Hauler commented.

“Much too cold,” Huffer disagreed, but almost before he had finished speaking, Brawn was yanking on his arm.

“Come on! We’re gonna be late!”

The journey to the drive-in theatre took about twenty minutes—“We’ll probably arrive at the end,” Huffer predicted—and when they parked the previews were just ending.

“What’s a feature presentation?” Hauler asked, scooting a bit closer to the alt. modes of his two friends.

“What we’re gonna see,” Brawn explained.

Huffer groaned and pressed closer to Hauler, away from the truck next to him. “Humans kissing? I don’t want to see that.”

“Drive-in theatres are supposed to be romantic, I think,” Brawn mused. “But then again, you see each other every day, so why go to a theatre if you’re not going to watch the movie—?”

The rest of his words were cut off by a sharp hushing sound from a human they couldn’t quite pinpoint. “I’m _trying_ to watch the movie, so shut up!” whoever it was snapped.

“Well, sorry,” Brawn muttered bitterly as the characters appeared on the screen.

They managed to get through a chunk of the movie with only a small bit of fidgeting, whispering, and dirty or confused looks from fellow viewers, but at last the plot became too much.

“Just a nanoklik!” Brawn burst out. “Roady, Huff, why are they putting _that_ in the paper instead of the fact that there’s a mass group of the retro rats flying around?! The _Cons_ get more publicity than the villains…and these villains are _dead!_ ”

“I don’t know,” Hauler admitted. “Maybe it’s because the humans get fed up with what they don’t underst— _ahh!_ ” His strangled cry, underlaid with the screech of metal, alarmed both of his companions, their headlights blinking on to see what had happened. Before they could ask, they saw a human squinting in the bright light, his fist raised. From that fist protruded a sharp, shiny key.

“We get fed up with what we don’t understand?” he shouted, shaking his fist. “Well, I’m fed up with how you don’t understand the meaning of ‘shut up’! Now I’ve keyed your car! Where are your words now, huh?!”

Hauler’s pained groan quickly transformed into a growl, his entire frame transforming with it. With Brawn and Huffer’s headlights blasting behind him, he towered over the human, clutching his left arm.

“Now that the ‘keyed’ car is threatening to retaliate, where are _your_ words?!” he snarled.

Apparently the words had fled him; the human simply stood there, his fist and jaw both dropping.

“Best get out of here while your legs are still where they belong,” Brawn warned, transforming to stand next to Hauler. The human did so and Huffer thought it safe to follow Brawn’s lead, standing and putting a hand on Hauler’s unwounded arm.

“Roady. Hey. C’mon, let’s just watch the rest,” he murmured.

Hauler’s vicious expression eased very slowly and he sank back to the ground, pointedly ignoring the tense peeking sent his way by the rest of the humans. By the end of the next scene, he was himself again, enthralled by what was happening before him. Huffer and Brawn shared a relieved glance behind his back and settled against his sides to finish what they hoped would be a smooth viewing.

When they woke from their impromptu recharge, Huffer flew instantly into a panic.

“They’re going to know we’re missing now, no doubt about it; they’re going to put us on cleaning duty for the entire _diun_ because we left!”

The race back to the _Ark_ was a dangerous one, filled with sudden swerving and abrupt U-turns when they found themselves on a few (many) wrong trails. When they reached the ship, however, they didn’t find Prime, Prowl, or any sort of firing range waiting for them.

“I can’t believe you predicted a firing range,” Brawn laughed, but the nervousness in his tone was hard to conceal.

“Let’s just…act completely normal,” Hauler suggested softly.

“But they’re going to wonder how you got that scratch!” Huffer fretted. “They’re going to wonder why we’re outside—”

“Not if we’re _inside!_ ” Brawn shot back, bolting for the entrance. Hauler and Huffer followed his course, slowing to what was supposed to be a stroll once they were in view of officers, though it was more like a rigid march. They halted, altogether paralyzed, when they heard Red Alert speaking anxiously with Prowl.

“The cameras were rigged to display the same footage of an empty hallway last night!” he gasped, bouncing on the edges of his feet. “I don’t know how or why, but they were!”

“Calm down, Red Alert. I’m certain they weren’t rigged; it must be a malfunction,” Prowl averred, more focused on the pad in his hands.

“Well, if that’s so, I need all the security cameras rewired!” Red Alert proclaimed.

“And who can we call for that?” Prowl asked distractedly.

Hauler felt his spark spasm sharply in an urge that caught him completely off-guard. He twitched slightly, his optics going huge and round. Fraggit if he gave them away, fraggit if he got cleaning duty for the entire _century_ , there was nothing on Earth, Cybertron, or any other planet that could have stopped him.

Prowl’s helm jerked up and he nearly dropped his reading when a voice he rarely heard cried out behind him:

“Bum-bum-battah-bum-bumbum-bumbum!”

Prowl turned around slowly and found Hauler, swaying back and forth and snapping with his beat.

“When there’s somethin’ strange in the neighborhood…who ya gonna call?”

“Ghostbusters!” Brawn and Huffer hollered in unison, causing Red Alert to jump nearly out of his armor in alarm.

“When there’s somethin’ weird and it don’t look good…who ya gonna call?”

“Ghostbusters!”

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, hidden by the doors, glanced at each other uneasily. The pained expression on Prowl’s face that _they_ were used to receiving was now directed at the chorusing trio. Somehow their latest prank seemed trivial.


End file.
